As Vancouver's pre-Olympics frenzy gathers steam, the restaurant industry is firing up its grills in anticipation. The tally of tables this year is unprecedented, with 30 new rooms recently opened or about to do so, and 800 new seats in a three-block radius in the Gastown neighbourhood alone.
Whether it's French bistro, nuevo Latino or the endlessly proliferating small-plate fusion joints, diners are gaining an increasing wealth of choice. But behind the scenes is a turf war that's got restaurant staff changing allegiances as freely as suburban swingers on a Saturday night.
In the past year alone, chef Robert Belcham and sommelier Tom Doughty left C to open Fuel, manager Paul Grunberg moved from Nu to Lumière to Chambar, and general manager Edwyn Kumar left Lumière for CinCin in a direct swap with manager/sommelier Sebastien Le Goff.
Meanwhile, chef Colleen McClean departed Feenie's for Rare, manager Andre McGillivray went from Lumière to Le Crocodile to Boneta, and Keith Nicholson moved from Nu to become wine director at Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler, B.C.
As chefs kitchen-hop and servers hold out for better pay and conditions, restaurateurs are struggling to maintain consistency in the face of enormous upheaval - while looking over their shoulders for other industry members on the prowl for good staff. The once tight-knit community is suddenly learning how to negotiate the rules of serious competition.
No one has seen more high-profile turnover this year than Rob Feenie. The fact that between his two restaurants, Lumière and Feenie's, he employs 100 staff necessitates a degree of fluidity, but it doesn't explain the mass hemorrhage of staff that has taken place.
"I had a period where my chef Marc-Andre [Choquette] quit, then my sous-chef Jeremie [Bastien] quit, then Antoine [Baillargeon] - his right-hand guy - he quit, then Guillaume [St. Pierre], who was doing the fish, he quit - it all came within a month for me," Mr. Feenie recalls. "Then the same thing happened at Feenie's - all these people left and went up to Chow. It was a big hit for us."
While he's happy for Chow's chef - former Lumière employee Jean Christophe Poirier - for branching out on his own, he is less impressed with the mass enticement of his staff.
"There is a level at which certain people will always follow colleagues, but they took an entire kitchen. Enough is enough."
Harry Kambolis, owner of the impressive trio Raincity Grill, C and Nu, says he's dismayed at the depths to which his colleagues are sinking. "People will try to poach anybody at any time," he says, "and, sometimes, it's more aggressive than others. It used to feel a little bit more respectable - people were less likely to walk in and start offering jobs."
But former employees say they were ready to jump ship for a good reason: cash.
"I walked out of Nu and straight into another job for [$12,000] more," one former staffer shrugs. Another suggests that if Mr. Kambolis is losing staff, it's no one's fault but his own.
"Harry," the industry insider says, "needs to pay his staff more."
Mr. Kambolis counters: "We're spending more and more and still the turnover is higher than it's ever been." And it's causing industry standards to slip, he adds.
"It's inevitable, in some ways," he admits. "You can't keep on opening restaurant upon restaurant - maybe 70 in the past year - and things stay the same.
"The community has crumbled. It really is everyone for themselves right now."
The Irish Heather's Sean Heather opened two restaurants last year. Salt was a winner right out of the gate; Lucky Diner has already closed.
At Salt, Mr. Heather employed local celebrity bartenders Jay Jones (Nu) and Chris Stearns (Lumière) to give the bare-bones meat and cheese concept a glamorous edge. Behind the scenes, Mr. Heather was accused of poaching.
"Absolutely not," he insists when pressed. "They had both left their previous jobs."
